1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a roller and a clothes drying apparatus provided with the roller, and, more particularly, to a clothes drying apparatus provided with rollers exhibiting high abrasion resistance while being easily elastically deformable.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a clothes drying apparatus forcibly blows hot air into a drying tub, thereby drying wet clothes contained in the drying tub. That is, the clothes drying apparatus dries the clothes by forcibly circulating, by a fan, air heated by a heater into the drying tub.
A conventional clothes drying apparatus includes a housing provided with a door at a front wall thereof and a heater at a rear wall thereof, a drying tub mounted in the housing, a hot air intake duct arranged at the rear wall of the housing to guide hot air generated around the heater into the drying tub, and a hot air exhaust duct adapted to guide exhaustion of the hot air from the drying tub.
In order to elastically support the drying tub under the condition in which clothes are contained in the drying tub in an amount larger than an appropriate amount, the conventional clothes drying apparatus also includes rollers rotatably mounted to the housing beneath the drying tub to support a peripheral wall of the drying tub.
Each roller has a peripheral portion made of an elastically deformable material to elastically support the drying tub. Where a soft material, which is easily elastically deformable, is used for the rollers, effectively absorbing intensive impact transmitted from the drying tub is possible, thereby preventing damage to hinge shafts to hingably couple the rollers to the housing. In this case, however, there is a problem in that the rollers may be easily abraded due to low abrasion resistance thereof. On the other hand, where a hard material having high hardness, and thus, high abrasion resistance, is used, the rollers may not easily be abraded even after prolonged use. In this case, however, effectively absorbing impact transmitted from the drying tub is difficult, so that there may be a problem in that the hinge shafts to hingably couple the rollers to the housing may be damaged.